3. Bullitt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lbs_nYW3-o Bullitt remains the measuring stick for car chases almost 50 years on, an outstanding, exhausting sequence that made iconic use of various San Francisco locations, and has as a result been parodied in media as diverse as a Metallica music video (I Disappear) and the video game Driver. Though the heavy lifting in Steve McQueen's Mustang GT 390 was performed by trusty legend Carey Loftin, the fact that McQueen looks so comfortable and badass behind the wheel enhances our engagement with what is going on, and also makes it more convincing that he actually did perform these incredibly stunts. Director Peter Yates manages to keep the chase more grounded and realistic than many of the chases on this list, so it's a testament to his ingenuity as a filmmaker that it's still one of the most thrilling on the list. Hubcaps fly off, rubber is burnt, and there are countless near misses, both with regard to traffic and then, later on, some shotgun blasts as well. That it ends in the most literally explosive fashion possible, then, is just the icing on the cake.